December 8, 2010 - Cypress Hill backup singer Michael "Shagg" Washington has filed a lawsuit against developer Rockstar Games and publisher Take-Two Interactive for allegedly using his likeness in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

July 1, 2010 - It's a common piece of knowledge in our industry that the PlayStation 2 is amongst the top echelon of gaming systems ever released. Absolutely trouncing its contemporary competition and easily outselling the GameCube and Xbox combined, the PlayStation 2 was a force to be reckoned with, with an incredibly long shelf-life, a legion of loyal players, and above all else, a noteworthy library of strong games.

February 25, 2010 - It's not wholly inaccurate to bill Rockstar as the house that Grand Theft Auto built – after all it was the success of the first top down game in 1998 that helped birth the company, and subsequent games have helped define it, from the revolution ushered in by GTA III and the cultural impact of Vice City and San Andreas to the cinematic cool and shocking detail of GTA IV – but as its slate for the coming months attests, there's a sense that it's shifting the focus away from its staple series as LA Noire, Max Payne 3 and Agent fill out a year that many thought would see the release of the next GTA. Is it possible that Rockstar is trying to move away from being predominantly known for GTA?

November 30, 2009 - Like most hand-wringing gaming controversies, the fuss over the Modern Warfare 2 airport massacre scene died down almost as quickly as it flared up. But the medium is certainly no stranger to the wider world getting in a pickle over those offensive polygons, and we've hand-picked a selection of the finest controversial gaming morsels for you to chew over...

July 13, 2009 - It used to be that finishing any given game in your collection was a big achievement. These days more and more developers are conscious of giving players an accessible difficulty level. A lot of thought and effort goes into the difficulty levels and balancing of the best games on the market to make sure that the intended audience can breeze through, struggle to the end or hit a nice balance in between, depending on the title.
There are occasional innovations in difficulty design, and quite a few examples of crossover between the systems discussed here, but it would be nice to see more developers putting greater thought into how to please different audiences. With the current divide between the so-called casual and hardcore gamers, should games work harder to cater to all expectations of challenge? It's worthwhile to stop and consider how game difficulty systems operate these days, and how developers might work to cater for each gamer's needs and wants.

April 8, 2009 - Alright, so even if you're not of a Judaeo-Christian upbringing and you don't eat chocolate, Easter can still hold some significance to you – in the form of classic gaming Easter Eggs – the hidden rooms, subtle references and in-jokes left by developers in commercial release, put in there for gamers to stumble upon and wonder about. Join us as we take this religious holiday as a great excuse to re-examine some of the best Gaming Easter Eggs out there.

April 28, 2008 - Grand Theft Auto IV is coming out tomorrow. If you haven't noticed already, the reviews for the game are pretty positive. We gave it a perfect 10, and we never do that. The game deserves the honor though, not least of which for its complex, entertaining characters. That's one thing the GTA series has always excelled at.
In honor of this massive release, we decided to look back on all the GTA games and pick a handful of our favorite characters. From heroes like the silent-but-deadly Claude to the neurotic lawyer Ken Rosenberg to the psychotic Catalina, these are the dirty scoundrels that entertained us the most.

April 28, 2008 - I love Grand Theft Auto. I don't mean just the original and I don't just mean IV -- I mean all of them. The series.
I don't know what it is -- the wanton violence, destruction, depravity, etc. -- but something about this series has spoken to me from the first time I picked up Grand Theft Auto 2 to the first time I picked up GTA IV.

April 25, 2008 - Grand Theft Auto IV is coming out on Tuesday. Boo.
Don't get us wrong, it's great to have the next installment of the storied franchise and stabbing random people on the street is awesome, but with each new addition to the family, a handful of snot-nosed punks show up without any knowledge of what this game is all about and don't even both to look back at the forefathers of this series.
We're here to change all that.

March 28, 2008 - It's all about the American Dream. You start at the bottom, put in effort and time, and you make it to the top... no matter who you have to kill. Any stone player can get known and get paid if they take what they want, and survive the day. And see the next guy lining up to take what's yours and make it his. That's what makes this country great.
Gamers live the life Rockstar's built for them, fifty million of them, doing what they want and getting ahead one drive-by, one stolen ride, one felony at a time. It's a funhouse mirror on our sliding culture, envisioned by a Scot and a pair of Brits. Imitators come and go. None come close to Grand Theft Auto's excesses, successes, consequences, and stepping outside the lines. The franchise is big-time. Stocks jump at the mention of its name. So do giant-killers, lawyers, mothers, and politicians lip -- all stepping up to take their shot at a game that turned controversy into fame, and then infamy.

January 29, 2008 - We learned in November that Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive has settled a class-action lawsuit filed in response to the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee mod scandal in 2005.

November 9, 2007 - Take-Two has announced it has finally settled its class-action lawsuit over 2005's "Hot Coffee" scandal. Under the terms of the settlement, Take-Two will provide either a replacement disc with the controversial sex scene removed or $35 to consumers who swear to the following:

December 7, 2006 - In an image that few expected to see this holiday, two of the loudest advocates against violent videogames, Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman, stood with ESRB President Patricia Vance, Best Buy President Brian Dunn and GameStop President Steve Morgan as partners. The unexpected alliance announced a new campaign aimed at educating parents about game ratings.

October 30, 2006 - There have been several lawsuits filed in the wake of the Hot Coffee scandal. According to Reuters news service, last week in Manhattan, one angry grandmother is making things very difficult for Take-Two Interactive, the publisher of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

March 1, 2006 - Violent media has existed as long as human history and the debate over how or when to control it is as hotly contested as ever. With the trend towards greater realism and graphic content that began in the 90's, videogames have found themselves the focal point du jour. But how much of an impact have these violent videogames had? We'll take a look at the psychological, political, and economic issues surrounding violent videogames and try to make sense of it all. No matter which side of the fence you sit on this argument, it is important to know the facts.